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I'll take the contrarian view - they are distracting from the cinemaphotography and scene content. I will 'endure' subtitles' for foreign movies or movies with language differences purposely inserted, but it's distracting from watching the movie and reading the subtitles.
Sometimes clues are in the scene, sometimes the beauty of a scene is fleeting - but then sometimes you can't miss a word of the dialog or you miss something important there, too.
If the movie or show is worth a second viewing then I can pick up on something I missed watching or reading.
Me too! I love them. No missed words or having to say to hubby "what did he say?" Both of us have excellent hearing - get it checked every year - but I think some actors and some directors purposely have music or other noise at odds with the dialogue and subtitles make the movie so much more enjoyable.
We started turning on subtitles for everything when our kids were little, because someone somewhere was always talking over the movie or TV show. But we also watch a lot of foreign movies and TV shows where the accents can be hard to understand. Throw in directors who love to have their characters mumble and whisper, then blast us with sound affects, and so many of today's movies and TV shows have nigh impossible to understand dialogue in places.
So yeah, we watch everything with captions these days.
Throw in directors who love to have their characters mumble and whisper, then blast us with sound affects, and so many of today's movies and TV shows have nigh impossible to understand dialogue in places.
This is so true. Watch an older, say, 1950s movie, and every word is crystal clear. Nowadays it’s as though no one bothers to train any actor in diction, and they don’t care if the audience understand the dialogue or not!
This is so true. Watch an older, say, 1950s movie, and every word is crystal clear. Nowadays it’s as though no one bothers to train any actor in diction, and they don’t care if the audience understand the dialogue or not!
Have to agree with this. Can't tell you how many recent-to-new releases I've tried to watch that seem to think overwhelming music/background atmosphere (aka NOISE) is enough to carry the film. Understandable dialog, not to mention enunciation by the performers seems to be an afterthought. Don't know where many actors got their training but they certainly didn't master human speech.
I watch a lot of foreign/subtitled content but don't tend to turn them on for films with English dialog unless I'm desperate. My hearing is still quite good thank goodness. Subtitles definitely vary in how much effort they require, but what's going on during the dialog certainly plays into it. If all I wanted out of a movie was the conversation, I could read the script! My TV allows me to modify the titling to some degree (size, color, font, background color) which can make annoying titling a bit easier but not all film formats permit it. Speed matters too.
This is so true. Watch an older, say, 1950s movie, and every word is crystal clear. Nowadays it’s as though no one bothers to train any actor in diction, and they don’t care if the audience understand the dialogue or not!
When a certain accent is required, the actor can and absolutely will be trained in speaking correctly. I think the trend now is toward more natural speech that reflects what we hear in the real world. IMHO, older 1950s movies have very unnatural sounding speech. They were all trained to have the same accent (which would vary depending on your country of origin). Nowadays, people are more well traveled and we expect that a character who is supposed to be from a certain city or state will have the speech pattern that reflects that location. For example, I think Kate Winslet had extensive coaching for her accent in Mare of Easttown. Certainly many other actors get similar training as most are now going to be expected to do work where they are expected to have other accents.
As for the original topic, I think that subtitles can be fatiguing if they are poorly written or the style doesn’t work right in the show. I’ve seen some where they overwrite subtitles already in the program if it is dual language, and then you can actually end up missing important content. In others like Squid Game, the subtitles were apparently not accurate and the dubbing was also not the best, so neither option was particularly good. That said, this is kind of a gig economy job. I have a family member who was doing some subtitling work until about 7-8 years ago. I’m not sure how she got the work, but it wasn’t like she went through any particular company. One can imagine that YMMV on how good the subtitles are, but I can say that even when I have kind of limited knowledge in a specific language, sometimes I notice the subtitles are awful.
As for the original topic, I think that subtitles can be fatiguing if they are poorly written or the style doesn’t work right in the show. I’ve seen some where they overwrite subtitles already in the program if it is dual language, and then you can actually end up missing important content. In others like Squid Game, the subtitles were apparently not accurate and the dubbing was also not the best, so neither option was particularly good. That said, this is kind of a gig economy job. I have a family member who was doing some subtitling work until about 7-8 years ago. I’m not sure how she got the work, but it wasn’t like she went through any particular company. One can imagine that YMMV on how good the subtitles are, but I can say that even when I have kind of limited knowledge in a specific language, sometimes I notice the subtitles are awful.
There definitely can be bad subtitles, but I think major production companies are aware of an international audience and do make more of an effort to make subtitling more natural language and less obtrusive, even if that means that the translation isn't 1:1.
I'm pretty sure it varies by the individual. There are various reasons for the difference; example: someone is dyslexic while another person may be hard of hearing. It is interesting to see how strong some of the feelings about them are. I had people walk out of movies simply because of the subtitles, and others complain about the dubbing ruining a movie.
Personally, I love subtitles on French films because it allows me to refresh my French and compare the idioms. I also used to get a hoot out of the dubbed karate movies where the lip movements indicated a complex long stream of words, and the dubbed voice went "So what?"
I also used to get a hoot out of the dubbed karate movies where the lip movements indicated a complex long stream of words, and the dubbed voice went "So what?"
I had the same reaction as a kid when watching "Pippi Longstocking." Worst dubbing ever!
I don’t prefer subtitles but the wife does.
It sounds odd I think but on our older tv the print comes in more onto the picture while the newer monster tv the print is very low to the bottom more out of the picture way.
Maybe that has just been a coincidence but I recall it that way several times.
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